All great tech companies have their showing up to the fight moment. I borrow this phrasing from former ATI/AMDer, current Qualcomm-er Eric Demers. While at ATI/AMD, Eric came to the conclusion that the best way to lose market share was by simply not showing up to the fight. Customers tend to spend their money at key points throughout the year (holidays, back to school, etc...). If you don't have something shiny and new when those upticks in spending happen, you're not going to win. Eric called it showing up to the fight. By showing up to the fight every year, you at least had a chance of selling whatever it is that you're trying to hock.

They're going through a once in every ten years transition, so while it sucks that they couldn't make their deadlines, they have a reason (but not an excuse).

Wow, that article is quite the hit piece, they talked to two people, then made a story out of it. Great journalism going on there! Anyone who is ashamed of their phone really has deeper issues, it's a phone. And BB7 does everything they are complaining about it not being able to do.

Why Using a BlackBerry Can Still Be 'Cool' (Seriously)The perception that BlackBerry users are "uncool" is widespread today. And there's good reason for that. But in reality, the BlackBerry is becoming the phone for independent thinkers and non-conformists, which is a whole lot "cooler" than using an iPhone like everyone else.

This is what your friends are writing about you? This is the lead off of the defense. And then the article goes right on and admit BB is the "second" phone. And repeats it at least one more time in the article.

In many respects, this article is worse for BB than an outright hatchet job.

I think the message is something like:

"I love BB so much, I don't use it as my main phone because it sucks for a lot of stuff, but I'm dumb enough to pay twice just to have it. But, seriously, it's way cool anyway. Be a non-conformist except not, because you still have to use your Android, but be a non-conformist of some stripe anyway and pay twice."

Heh. Use the phone everyone associates with stodgy old corporate types because it's so unpopular now that it's non-comofrmist and cool. It reminds me of the kids who claimed to be Republicans at my (extremely liberal) college because it was such an unusual thing to be.

I've just been scanning the last couple of pages of this thread, and I'm baffled that RIM seems to still be unveiling features. When you don't have a product on the market, you find a couple of unique selling points, polish things up, and just fucking ship something. Apple shipped the first iPhone without 3G, GPS, third-party app support, copy & paste, etc. Even Microsoft understood with Windows Phone that they couldn't afford to wait for every feature they wanted. It almost feels like RIM knows at some level that this thing is going down flames and is consequently afraid to pull the trigger.

It's funny. The crazy thing about this whole situation, and the reason this thread is so long and contentious IMO, is that Blackberry has wayyyy more (jargon alert) "brand equity" than any other device aside from, obviously, the iPhone. So they have this enormous amount of potential because people know who they are and respect what they've done. And they keep effing up on the actual products. If they made a killer product this year, they could still mount a comeback I think, because the vast majority of Android users are not brand loyalists - they're just people who want a cool smartphone that's cheaper than an Apple product.

Of course, as we all know, this ain't gonna happen because many hot engineers at RIM have probably already left.

My point was, if this thing were to happen, everything else is already in place for them to succeed. Walk out in the street and ask the first person who walks by what a Lumia is or a Nexus and they'll just stand there with their mouth agape, farting and furrowing their eyebrows like a confused neanderthal. Ask them what a Blackberry is and they'll say "Oh those smartphones. Aren't they having some sort of business problem or something?"

So, if they launched something really cool, the public and the press would eat the comeback story up with a spoon.

The Nexus phones and Lumia don't sell, so people not knowing them isn't that surprising. Ask them what the Galaxy S is, they'll know that, as it sells very well, and is advertised very well too.

Why would Microsoft buy RIM? They have nothing of value to MS besides patents. RIM isn't very good at software apparently, and to date they've yet to make a compelling touch screen device. What what MS want with them?

This claim keeps being made, and yet neither of the remaining principal competitors, RIM or MS, seem to be making much progress nor have they over several years now.

We're getting long past the point where Android is this mysterious "default" choice that nobody really cares for. It may not be able to match Apple for loyalty, but I don't know that anyone can. It does seem to be holding its own, though. Every month that it does so is that many more millions of customers.

Once you get into the hundreds of millions range, you have by definition created something that has lots of loyal consumers and even consumers who, while not ravingly happy with it, will think twice about leaving.

My daughter's unexpected anecdote about how she (and her Mac-wielding husband) ended up on Android (again, in her case) is but one data point, but a cautionary tale.

The product has legs and it won't (apparently) be so easily displaced.

This claim keeps being made, and yet neither of the remaining principal competitors, RIM or MS, seem to be making much progress nor have they over several years now.

To be fair, neither RIM nor MS have competitive offerings at the $200 price point.

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We're getting long past the point where Android is this mysterious "default" choice that nobody really cares for. It may not be able to match Apple for loyalty, but I don't know that anyone can. It does seem to be holding its own, though. Every month that it does so is that many more millions of customers.

There's no mystery at all.

Android spans the entire ecosystem range from $100 to $800, is nearly as salable as iOS (given at an equivalent pricepoint it makes up about 25% of the market, ie, $400+), and overwhelmingly dominates anything below that price because no one else is playing.

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Once you get into the hundreds of millions range, you have by definition created something that has lots of loyal consumers and even consumers who, while not ravingly happy with it, will think twice about leaving.

No you don't. You don't have loyalty, you have pragmatism. These same customers left Nokia and RIM, after all.

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My daughter's unexpected anecdote about how she (and her Mac-wielding husband) ended up on Android (again, in her case) is but one data point, but a cautionary tale.

The product has legs and it won't (apparently) be so easily displaced.

Not at all. If Apple priced the iPhone 4 at $250, the 4S at $350, and the 5 at $450 (reasonable for anyone except Apple), you would see a ton of displacement.

No you don't. You don't have loyalty, you have pragmatism. These same customers left Nokia and RIM, after all

I could make the same argument about Apple.

The fact is, if it was such a lousy alternative, we'd be seeing lots of defections, DJs having "smash your Android day" and all the rest.

Face it; damn thing is popular in its own right and with millions of consumers.

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Not at all. If Apple priced the iPhone 4 at $250, the 4S at $350, and the 5 at $450 (reasonable for anyone except Apple), you would see a ton of displacement.

We don't know that. What we do know is that Apple assiduously doesn't put that to the test. It could have done that any time these last years and, if you were right, headed off Android.

There were even rumors that only I remember about some kind of "iPhone 2" that never happened. And, if it had happened when rumored, probably would have had the result you predicted. Today? Not as clear.

At any rate, it didn't and it doesn't now, either because it wanted the profits or it really isn't sure it could win down there. Take your pick.

Because there was zero reason to stay. If you buy into the Android/Google ecosystem, it provides just as strong or stronger reason to stay as Apple does.

Not at all.

It was only last week that Google TV could access Google Play for video.

Apple TV has had this feature since it's inception.

So there isn't some kind of "lock in" to the Google Play video ecosystem, yet.

Then there's the AirPlay feature, which is supported across iPads, iPhones, iPod touches, and Macs to allow any TV to become a "second screen" for your iDevice; so now there are two features that "sell" AppleTV, as well as increasing your dependency on the Apple ecosystem.

Then there is the fact that Apple TV is dramatically cheaper than most implementations of Google TV.

There's also a much weaker PMP and tablet ecosystem to lock people into Android, as well.

It's stronger than Nokia or RIM, but not as strong or stronger than Apple.

No you don't. You don't have loyalty, you have pragmatism. These same customers left Nokia and RIM, after all

I could make the same argument about Apple.

The fact is, if it was such a lousy alternative, we'd be seeing lots of defections, DJs having "smash your Android day" and all the rest.

Face it; damn thing is popular in its own right and with millions of consumers.

Except there are no equally competent/capable phones under $300.

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Not at all. If Apple priced the iPhone 4 at $250, the 4S at $350, and the 5 at $450 (reasonable for anyone except Apple), you would see a ton of displacement.

We don't know that. What we do know is that Apple assiduously doesn't put that to the test. It could have done that any time these last years and, if you were right, headed off Android.

There were even rumors that only I remember about some kind of "iPhone 2" that never happened. And, if it had happened when rumored, probably would have had the result you predicted. Today? Not as clear.

At any rate, it didn't and it doesn't now, either because it wanted the profits or it really isn't sure it could win down there. Take your pick.

So there's no way to actually back up any claims about "low cost purchasing behavior" except to point out between 2007 until 2011 many of those consumers left Symbian/Nokia for Android.

So there's no way to actually back up any claims about "low cost purchasing behavior" except to point out between 2007 until 2011 many of those consumers left Symbian/Nokia for Android.

The departure of so many Nokia (and, I presume, BB folk) is one indicator.

So is even the new business to a degree.

Another fact is, a lot of people decided for a goodly number of years that smartphones weren't "for them". At all. Either Apple or Android or both changed people's minds in a way Nokia and BB never did. It's kind of an inference, but I don't see how it isn't reasonable. The low end could have simply waited, after all, for that fabled iPhone 2 (whether it was coming or not) or continued with BB/Nokia. It didn't wait; it went Android.

With 20/20 hindsight, we can say people were ready to move, but we might be misapplying even hindsight. The takeup here has been a phenomenon, but nothing in the stars said it had to be. The PC, when it was 3,000 dollars, was a product that a lot of consumers decided to wait for. For decades in some cases. Not here. But, if Android sucked, it might well have lead to a bifurcated takeup where Apple won, and maybe there was dinky movement towards Nokia and BB on the low end if anything at all.

Or, perhaps most significantly of all for this argument, they could have gone Microsoft (who "ought" to have been the Apple alternative). Those 100 dollar Lumias, in particular, might have done better here in the US than they did. So, it wasn't just price.

Since Apple has no product in that range, it at least proves Android meets some minimal idea of what the consumers that never bought WPx, WMx, BB or Nokia were looking for. That may not be Apple levels of product approval, but it is a heck of a head start in that direction. Android then gets a chance to worm its way into people's lives, too.

After this long a time, if it doesn't have some fraction of decently loyal customers, I think we'd have indications. People with money to burn would be buying WPx and ditching their Androids, for instance. Maybe that's happening, but if it is, I haven't heard any significant numbers on it.

Nor have I heard, yet, of any big fleet of defections when it comes time to renew. That's happening now, at last, and the disgruntled are going to move. I'm sure there are some (just as some move from Apple to Android, too), but I haven't heard or read of anything that suggests significance. Still could happen, but nothing heard yet.

Nor have we had a groundswell of "friends don't let friends buy Android", which we should have long ago seen if most people are just waiting for that 2 year contract to run out.

No you don't. You don't have loyalty, you have pragmatism. These same customers left Nokia and RIM, after all.

And Apple.

Where do you have the record of Apple losing significant market share, like Nokia and RIM, since 2007?

They have quarterly dips and rises, but nothing like an exodus from their core product (iPhone) to an alternative product (Android).

Sales figures continually point to Apple outselling comparable $400+ smartphones; the iPhone has made Apple the second biggest smartphone vendor only behind Samsung, and only marginally, and Apple's annual sales rate continues to grow, as does it's market share.

Perhaps the iPhone 5 will be the end of this trend, but there isn't enough sales data to show that yet.

There's nothing good about it. Apple refuses to play in that space and no one else has an equally competent solution either. Lumia's barely break that price, but WP has hamstrung itself beyond belief (no upgrade path, WP8 not out yet), RIM has delayed BB10 for three years now, and and therefore the only players in that space are Samsung, HTC, ZTE, LG, Huwei, and a couple others, and most of them are doing poorly.

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So there's no way to actually back up any claims about "low cost purchasing behavior" except to point out between 2007 until 2011 many of those consumers left Symbian/Nokia for Android.

The departure of so many Nokia (and, I presume, BB folk) is one indicator.

Another fact is, a lot of people decided for a goodly number of years that smartphones weren't "for them". At all. Either Apple or Android or both changed people's minds in a way Nokia and BB never did. It's kind of an inference, but I don't see how it isn't reasonable. The low end could have simply waited, after all, for that fabled iPhone 2 (whether it was coming or not) or continued with BB/Nokia. It didn't wait; it went Android.

It would have been dumb to wait. There's no reason to wait when you can reach out and get the majority of the iPhone's functionality for a quarter the price.

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With 20/20 hindsight, we can say people were ready to move, but we might be misapplying even hindsight. The takeup here has been a phenomenon, but nothing in the stars said it had to be. The PC, when it was 3,000 dollars, was a product that a lot of consumers decided to wait for. For decades in some cases. Not here.

$3,000 dollars is significantly higher a threshold than $300 dollars. People have pointed out $300 as a magic pricepoint for CE for a long time now.

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But, if Android sucked, it might well have lead to a bifurcated takeup where Apple won, and maybe there was dinky movement towards Nokia and BB on the low end if anything at all.

Android doesn't suck, though.

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Or, perhaps most significantly of all for this argument, they could have gone Microsoft (who "ought" to have been the Apple alternative). Those 100 dollar Lumias, in particular, might have done better here in the US than they did. So, it wasn't just price.

That is also an inappropriate comparison when you consider the US is heavily subsidized; $100 for a Lumia vs $100 for an iPhone 4? or $200 for an iPhone 4S?

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Since Apple has no product in that range, it at least proves Android meets some minimal idea of what the consumers that never bought WPx, WMx, BB or Nokia were looking for.

That's my claim, yes.

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That may not be Apple levels of product approval, but it is a heck of a head start in that direction. Android then gets a chance to worm its way into people's lives, too.

And there's my dissent. There's really nothing to lock a person into a phone except apps, data, and services, and most services are cross platform, data is pretty portable, and apps are broadly available across both iOS and Android.

So Apps is really the only thing keeping people on Android over, say, RIM or Nokia.

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After this long a time, if it doesn't have some fraction of decently loyal customers, I think we'd have indications.

Why do you make this assertion and how do you back it up?

Given that most people don't buy a new phone every year, it will take at least 3 years to show any kind of "loyalty", no? People didn't really take up Android in any significant quantity until late 2010, meaning real data on Android replacement rate won't kick in until early 2013, possibly late 2013.

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People with money to burn would be buying WPx and ditching their Androids, for instance. Maybe that's happening, but if it is, I haven't heard any significant numbers on it.

Why do you make this assertion and how do you back it up?

If you have money to burn, the only real solution today is the iPhone, and sales figures have consistently shown they have the predominant fraction of high end handset sales (I have estimated it as 2:1 to 3:1 depending on which quarter and what metric you use, be it raw sales count, profits, or both).

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Nor have I heard, yet, of any big fleet of defections when it comes time to renew. That's happening now, at last, and the disgruntled are going to move. I'm sure there are some (just as some move from Apple to Android, too), but I haven't heard or read of anything that suggests significance. Still could happen, but nothing heard yet.

Again, it would require a big fleet, first, and that was only apparent by the middle of 2010. It is now late 2012, so if any big defections occur, it will be in the next couple quarters.

The problem is that there is nothing to defect too except other Android handsets, so what we need to look for is people moving from Samsung to HTC or LG or whatever.

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Nor have we had a groundswell of "friends don't let friends buy Android", which we should have long ago seen if most people are just waiting for that 2 year contract to run out.

A lot of it is indirect evidence, but it does seem to be there.

No, it isn't. That 2 year contract period wouldn't have had much effect until literally this quarter, and that hasn't given us enough time to actually collect the data.

If Samsung loses it's #1 spot and it is a three way tie between Samsung, LG, and Apple, for example, we'll know there's little brand loyalty in the Android crowd.

Of course there is one more caveat; outside of LG, Huwei, and ZTC, there aren't a lot of companies capable of handling the volume of phones that Samsung and Apple routinely sell. LG has just barely gotten it's Android act in order and Huwei and ZTC are both cheap brands at this point.

Lots of people are just joining the smartphone market for the first time every year and will choose between what is best/coolest.

Churn still exists.

The discussion about price outside of NA is bang on. It's not between $100 and $200 on a $70 two year plan, it's between $100 and $400 on pay as you go outside of NA (where the plan is $5-$50 a month).

RIM will be able to play in both markets with BB10, as it has with its 80 million subscribers mainly in the lower end market for the past year or two. Apple has chosen not to so far. Lock-in is way over hyped on a product you replace every two years for very little money (compared to a $700 PC or $1200 laptop) on which most people here are basing their lock in theories ala Windows vs Mac OS. It's not like people are buying MS Office or Photoshop for $500 on their phones like they did on their PCs.

I meant, customers do leave Apple and go to Android or WP7/8, just the same as customers also leave Android or Nokia or RIM and go to Apple.

Brand loyalty clearly exists, but what measure do we actually have for it?

Clearly people bounce around quite often. And I don't see any kind of numbers on loyalty. Discussing it is pie-in-the-sky without data, IMO.

You can check Brand Keys Customer Loyalty Index where they try to measure exactly that (and they make a point of attempting to measure actual loyalty, not what people claim they are loyal to). For the latest 2012 survey Apple ranked as having the highest loyalty in the laptop, smart phone & tablet categories (as another data point, Samsung ranked highest when it came to non-smart phones, 2nd in laptops & smart phones, 3rd in tablets after Amazon). RIM was 7 in smart phone, 9 in tablets.

BlackBerry outcasts say that, increasingly, they suffer from shame and public humiliation as they watch their counterparts mingle on social networking apps that are not available to them, take higher-resolution photos, and effortlessly navigate streets — and the Internet — with better GPS and faster browsing. More indignity comes in having to outsource tasks like getting directions, booking travel, making restaurant reservations and looking up sports scores to their exasperated iPhone and Android-carting partners, friends and colleagues.

“I feel absolutely helpless,” said Ms. Gossage. “You’re constantly watching people do all these things on their phones and all I have going for me is my family’s group BBM chats.”

This, from the Grey Lady?

It will take something special to come back from being "outcasts". This is only one article, blah, blah, blah, but if people are getting heaped on like this, it's bad news and no mistake. People want to feel good about what they own. This is Edsel-land and while some people still live there, most of us pick up our marbles and go home.

Anecdotal evidence. Everyone had out a smartphone because we were looking something up, and she hesitantly pulled out her BlackBerry. We made fun of her having it (Android/iPhone/Windows Phone users), she started swearing at it and said she was replacing it with an iPhone first chance she got. I'll admit to being somewhat of a snob (I like decisions so long as they're informed), it's like seeing a steam-powered car. It's quaint, it'll get you there if it has the steam, but damned if it isn't antiquated.

If you have money to burn, the only real solution today is the iPhone, and sales figures have consistently shown they have the predominant fraction of high end handset sales (I have estimated it as 2:1 to 3:1 depending on which quarter and what metric you use, be it raw sales count, profits, or both).

There are 100s of millions of people in this market. That means that some large group of people with money to burn bought Android even on the high end. Not everyone went Apple, even with money to burn.

If they weren't happy, they have the wherewithal to ignore the contract and move. And, they're the sort of people that go to the cocktail parties in places like New York that seem to attract the attention of those trying to sniff out a trend.

I'm not even approximately rich and famous. I've cut my losses in the 500 dollar range before. I just did it, in fact, with an automobile I junked instead of repaired when it got in a wreck. I probably had a net loss of 500 to 1000 dollars over patching it up and selling it right away, which I just don't have time for; I didn't like the car well enough to keep it or even to repair and sell it. I just took the insurance money, donated the thing to charity, and pretended it was totaled. It almost was, but I ate the difference.

A decently large fraction of the Android market could "be that guy" if there was really widespread dissatisfaction. 500 bucks isn't the end of the world if you're really unhappy.

That suggests that most are in the tepid range at worst.

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The problem is that there is nothing to defect too except other Android handsets,

What? Did MS, Nokia, and RIM exit the market?

Or, are you actually agreeing with me here in your own way.

I thought the hypothesis was that Android has weak loyalty and people are OK with jumping ship.

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And as for the big ramp up, yes, that test is still largely in the future. But it wasn't entirely this step function from nothing to something. If big time defections were happening, we'd be seeing it in Nokia and RIM sales -- as well as Apple. Smaller numbers at present, to be sure, but happening.

And, again, if defections were coming in a major way, why isn't word-of-mouth killing Android already? If defections were big, a lot of people would be talking to their friends even if they were waiting for the contract to expire.

There'd be consumers walking into AT&T and Verizon and so on, kicking the tires and asking for demonstrations of WP7, too. In the millions. It wouldn't go unnoticed.

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Of course there is one more caveat; outside of LG, Huwei, and ZTC, there aren't a lot of companies capable of handling the volume of phones that Samsung and Apple routinely sell. LG has just barely gotten it's Android act in order and Huwei and ZTC are both cheap brands at this point.

If there were Android defections coming or even changes between brands that would affect intra-Android share, this is a very solvable problem. At most, one or two quarters of back log and it all settles.

If you have money to burn, the only real solution today is the iPhone, and sales figures have consistently shown they have the predominant fraction of high end handset sales (I have estimated it as 2:1 to 3:1 depending on which quarter and what metric you use, be it raw sales count, profits, or both).

There are 100s of millions of people in this market. That means that some large group of people with money to burn bought Android even on the high end. Not everyone went Apple, even with money to burn.

I've already noted that; a good third to quarter of the market with money to burn went Android.

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If they weren't happy, they have the wherewithal to ignore the contract and move. And, they're the sort of people that go to the cocktail parties in places like New York that seem to attract the attention of those trying to sniff out a trend.

I'm not even approximately rich and famous. I've cut my losses in the 500 dollar range before. I just did it, in fact, with an automobile I junked instead of repaired when it got in a wreck. I probably had a net loss of 500 to 1000 dollars over patching it up and selling it right away, which I just don't have time for; I didn't like the car well enough to keep it or even to repair and sell it. I just took the insurance money, donated the thing to charity, and pretended it was totaled. It almost was, but I ate the difference.

A decently large fraction of the Android market could "be that guy" if there was really widespread dissatisfaction. 500 bucks isn't the end of the world if you're really unhappy.

That suggests that most are in the tepid range at worst.

What are you talking about?

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The problem is that there is nothing to defect too except other Android handsets,

What? Did MS, Nokia, and RIM exit the market?

Yes! That is the point!

Symbian is no good alternative, and hasn't been for the last two years.BB OS is no good alternative, and hasn't been for the last two years.Windows Phone has been hamstrung by low CPU/screen support, and wasn't even available until two years ago.

If you're in the market for a good cheap smartphone you only have one choice, today, and for the last two years.

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Or, are you actually agreeing with me here in your own way.

I thought the hypothesis was that Android has weak loyalty and people are OK with jumping ship.

I'm arguing that it is an untestable hypothesis because there are no reasonable options for people willing to jump ship.

My hypothesis is also different; that the low end has weak loyalty and that is why they jumped ship in the first place rather than wait for Nokia or RIM to "get better". The flip of that hypothesis is that the high end has stronger loyalty because people spend more money and time on their purchase.

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And as for the big ramp up, yes, that test is still largely in the future. But it wasn't entirely this step function from nothing to something. If big time defections were happening, we'd be seeing it in Nokia and RIM sales -- as well as Apple. Smaller numbers at present, to be sure, but happening.

We saw it already. People left Nokia and RIM like crazy these past few years because there was little loyalty. That is my proof of the assertion that if something better shows up in the $250 or so range then people would leave Android as well.

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And, again, if defections were coming in a major way, why isn't word-of-mouth killing Android already? If defections were big, a lot of people would be talking to their friends even if they were waiting for the contract to expire.

Because, as I've said several times, there is nothing acceptable to defect to.

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There'd be consumers walking into AT&T and Verizon and so on, kicking the tires and asking for demonstrations of WP7, too. In the millions. It wouldn't go unnoticed.

Except that WP7 wasn't an acceptable substitute for Android. It shipped without CDMA support, it had only 10 devices in 30 countries, had a horrible web browser, no multitasking, did not support low cost hardware (even iOS at the time supported 800MHz CPUs and 256mb of ram), did not support high end hardware (limited to 480x800 when Apple was at 960x640, and only single core as Android was widely adopting dual core).

It wasn't attractive to the low end nor the high end.

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Of course there is one more caveat; outside of LG, Huwei, and ZTC, there aren't a lot of companies capable of handling the volume of phones that Samsung and Apple routinely sell. LG has just barely gotten it's Android act in order and Huwei and ZTC are both cheap brands at this point.

If there were Android defections coming or even changes between brands that would affect intra-Android share, this is a very solvable problem. At most, one or two quarters of back log and it all settles.

Sure, but again with the low end not buying a new phone every year, you wouldn't see this until the next 6 months or so; that, and Samsung hasn't screwed up so much that LG, Huwei, nor ZTE have any opportunity to grab share away from them.

So let me recap my hypothesis and point since it appears to be lost in all our thread snippets: There is little brand loyalty at low pricepoints.

Proof of said hypothesis is that people easily left RIM and Symbian for Android instead of waiting for Nokia and RIM to release competitive HW. Then I have to explain why no one has therefore left Android if there is little brand loyalty at the low end.

First, there exists no good alternatives. Android is "good enough" and just about as good as iOS. Both are significantly better than Windows Mobile, Windows Phone 7, BB OS 6/7, and Symbian, in terms of "consumer acceptance". Windows Phone 7 may have had a chance had it launched in 2009, but it was left behind due to expensive year old specs in comparison to everyone else.

Therefore Android dominates the low end by dint of the fact that Apple has no phones under $375 and that no competitor has a good phone under $375.

I posit, however, that if someone were to offer a good phone (competitive with iOS at the $400+ pricepoint congruous to Android) but also available in the $300 or so pricepoint (again, akin to Android) that we would start seeing defection from Android merely because something that is good enough to sell $500 smartphones will also sell $300 or $200 smartphones. At this point, and for the last few years, nothing has existed that satisfies this qualification.

Apple has skirted closest by selling a $400 iPhone 4 or $375 iPhone 3GS, but even those two examples are ridiculously expensive for the price; strike a hundred from each and you would see the kind of defection I think could happen, but Apple would never do that!

Now my hypothesis can be tested another way, and that is to see if there are shifts from one Android OEM to another; we already have seen people leave HTC for Samsung, for example, but as I already mentioned earlier, this also requires competitive HW given the OEMs are using the same OS. LG has been recorded in multiple articles as being late to the party because they were amidst a transition from Windows Mobile to Android, and would only have just started acquiring any sales momentum this year. It has also been recorded in multiple articles that HTC was also fighting to regain customers and that the process only just started with the One series, again just this year.

A third test of my hypothesis is if we see an equalization amonst equally capable OEMs, but this cannot be put to the test until we have OEMs that are capable, compared to Samsung.

So maybe in 2013 we will see if HTC and LG catch up to Samsung in prowess, or Google turns Motorola around, or Windows Phone 8 can reasonably sell $500 phones as well as $200 phones, or Apple decides to release a competitive $300 phone. If none of those things happen we can never know if there is any brand loyalty at the low end of the scale.

I'm arguing that it is an untestable hypothesis because there are no reasonable options for people willing to jump ship.

So, RIM and MS and Nokia exited the market for. . .no reason? They didn't try? They aren't still trying?

Or, did Android beat them out of it.

It seems like there is a hole in your argument about "no good alternative". It's not some kind of cosmic accident.

If Android wasn't there, either smart phone take up would be lower or one of them would be bigger. Probably a combination of the two.

Regardless, Android beat out companies that thought they were in the same market.

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First, there exists no good alternatives. Android is "good enough" and just about as good as iOS. Both are significantly better than Windows Mobile, Windows Phone 7, BB OS 6/7, and Symbian, in terms of "consumer acceptance". Windows Phone 7 may have had a chance had it launched in 2009, but it was left behind due to expensive year old specs in comparison to everyone else

But this blows chunks in "no good alternative" too. You state outright that Android and iOS were the best two and well above the alternatives.

So, why wouldn't the alternatives lose out and why wouldn't consumers be loyal to iOS and Android?

They could have bought BB and MS; they didn't. You admit the software was inferior. But, we're talking about what amounts to software loyalty here.

My hypothesis is also different; that the low end has weak loyalty and that is why they jumped ship in the first place rather than wait for Nokia or RIM to "get better". The flip of that hypothesis is that the high end has stronger loyalty because people spend more money and time on their purchase.

I agree with much of your post, you miss the fact that people leaving RIM were leaving high end phones (at least in price, Blackberries were not cheap back in the day, and you have to take into account the two year contract delay when looking at what people originally paid for their BB) to high end iPhones and Androids, as well as low end Androids.

So your argument that there is stronger loyalty at the high may be true, but their is certainly not THAT much loyalty at the high end you suppose, as evidenced by the history of the cell market.

I'm arguing that it is an untestable hypothesis because there are no reasonable options for people willing to jump ship.

So, RIM and MS and Nokia exited the market for. . .no reason? They didn't try? They aren't still trying?

Or, did Android beat them out of it.

Because they failed. They tried, are still trying, and so far have still failed.

RIM hasn't released competitive HW and are years late with a competitive OS. They won't be competitive until next year.Nokia failed to release a competitive OS and gave up last year, instead adopting Windows Phone.Microsoft has the best alternative and even then Windows Phone is a little bit too late. It is 2012 and Windows Phone still doesn't support dual or quad core or 720p (or even qHD), though they plan to rectify this with WP8.

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It seems like there is a hole in your argument about "no good alternative". It's not some kind of cosmic accident.

If Android wasn't there, either smart phone take up would be lower or one of them would be bigger. Probably a combination of the two.

Regardless, Android beat out companies that thought they were in the same market.

No disagreement there. The problem is that no good third alternative exists, yet.

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First, there exists no good alternatives. Android is "good enough" and just about as good as iOS. Both are significantly better than Windows Mobile, Windows Phone 7, BB OS 6/7, and Symbian, in terms of "consumer acceptance". Windows Phone 7 may have had a chance had it launched in 2009, but it was left behind due to expensive year old specs in comparison to everyone else

But this blows chunks in "no good alternative" too. You state outright that Android and iOS were the best two and well above the alternatives.

So, why wouldn't the alternatives lose out and why wouldn't consumers be loyal to iOS and Android?

They are loyal, at the high end. My hypothesis that there is weak loyalty only covers the low end, and that is where RIM, Nokia, and Microsoft have failed.

And the alternatives have lost out. Have you seen the sales and market share figures for Nokia and RIM and Microsoft?

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They could have bought BB and MS; they didn't. You admit the software was inferior. But, we're talking about what amounts to software loyalty here.

No, they wouldn't have bought BB and MS, because they are inferior. Loyalty isn't tested until you have a reason to leave, and inferior alternatives don't do that.

If you're a Coke person, would you drink free Pepsi?

Brand loyalty would say you wouldn't buy Pepsi, but how about free?

If yes, then the question is how much can Pepsi charge and still get your business?

That is the gist of my argument.

If you're an Android person, would you use a free Blackberry? Since the market clearly doesn't buy Blackberry, then the question goes, how much can Blackberry charge and still get business?

My hypothesis is also different; that the low end has weak loyalty and that is why they jumped ship in the first place rather than wait for Nokia or RIM to "get better". The flip of that hypothesis is that the high end has stronger loyalty because people spend more money and time on their purchase.

I agree with much of your post, you miss the fact that people leaving RIM were leaving high end phones (at least in price, Blackberries were not cheap back in the day, and you have to take into account the two year contract delay when looking at what people originally paid for their BB) to high end iPhones and Androids, as well as low end Androids.

So your argument that there is stronger loyalty at the high may be true, but their is certainly not THAT much loyalty at the high end you suppose, as evidenced by the history of the cell market.

Sure, and then the hypothesis changes!

How much better than the competition does your product have to be to get them to switch?

If RIM can create a phone that is worth $900, but sells it for $600, then I believe you will see mass defection from iOS and Android.

As in, Apple literally has a 64gb iPhone for sale at $849... and people buy it.

They, however, also offer an identical (sans storage) phone for $649.

Another test of that hypothesis is that you manufacture 30 million phones and you still limit people to only 2 per customer.

No, they wouldn't have bought BB and MS, because they are inferior. Loyalty isn't tested until you have a reason to leave, and inferior alternatives don't do that.

You're slipping in a privileged argument here.

You label the alternatives as "inferior" and by doing so, you magically rule that Android has no "test of loyalty".

But, BB, MS, and Nokia are and always were alternatives. The fact that Android beats the pants off of them is no knock on Android and we can't magically conclude there is no loyalty when it vaporizes the available competition. That's frankly a bit crazy.

Millions of Android phones have been bought in this period. Not a little of that is because Joe buys Android, likes it, tells Jill it's OK and she tells Joan and so on.

It isn't like they all sit around glumly saying "Damn, MS and RIM failed, so <insert mopey expression here> I guess I'll have to buy Android."

They still, even today have the alternative of not buying anything, too. This happened in the PC space at the low end for years.

As long as there is no compulsion to buy (and there is not, especially as data plans are an added cost over and above the phones proper), it is entirely reasonable to conclude that the purchase of an Android phone is an affirmative act and as such, should engender no more and no less loyalty than any other brand that is wiping the floor with its competition.

Under your strange definition, we could presumably infer more loyalty for Android if MS and BB didn't fail so spectacularly. Sorry, that isn't real world. The hypothesis that a brand has more loyalty in a competitive market than one in which it vanquishes the available competition is just not sensible.

Now, it is true that a 300 dollar iPhone would be a test, but it's also true that it works somewhat the other way; Apple does not have the whole high end to itself.

BTW, it is also true that once you get into the 100s of millions of consumer range, things as trivial as peanut butter have substantial brand loyalty. Arguing as you did, I would argue that generic and house brands are "inferior" and don't count. No one else would.

Is it 100 per cent? No, surveys proclaim it isn't anywhere near. Nor is it as good as Apple. But, we can't perform this odd jujitsu on a stunning marketplace result and thereby infer no loyalty.

The results proclaim a certain amount of loyalty and loyalty that matters. World of mouth for Android has to be pretty darn good on the results we see.

No, they wouldn't have bought BB and MS, because they are inferior. Loyalty isn't tested until you have a reason to leave, and inferior alternatives don't do that.

You're slipping in a privileged argument here.

No, I'm not. There is no privilege here, except possibly that MS and RIM and Nokia screwed up and lost privilege.

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You label the alternatives as "inferior" and by doing so, you magically rule that Android has no "test of loyalty".

No, not at all. By labeling them as inferior I say that there is no way for Nokia, MS, or RIM to afford to test the consumer's loyalty to Android. They aren't able to compete.

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But, BB, MS, and Nokia are and always were alternatives. The fact that Android beats the pants off of them is no knock on Android and we can't magically conclude there is no loyalty when it vaporizes the available competition. That's frankly a bit crazy.

But they aren't competent alternatives. It's like saying plain tap water is a good alternative to Coke and you can use water as a way to test Coke's brand loyalty.

What I'm saying is quite different than what you are reading. I'm not saying there is no loyalty at all.

I'm saying that Android's loyalty is the same as MS and RIM and Nokia's brand loyalty; if something better shows up at equivalent price, people will switch. That's not crazy, at all, that's good sense.

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Millions of Android phones have been bought in this period. Not a little of that is because Joe buys Android, likes it, tells Jill it's OK and she tells Joan and so on.

Correct. And if Joe buys alternative X, likes it better than Android, then alternative X will spread.

What I'm claiming is that there is no affordable alternative X, and even no premium alternative X, that Joe would like better except iOS.

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It isn't like they all sit around glumly saying "Damn, MS and RIM failed, so <insert mopey expression here> I guess I'll have to buy Android."

Correct. To truly understand my point, they don't sit around and say, "Damn, MS and RIM failed, but darn it I'm loyal so I'll stick around until they get better".

They didn't, switched to Android, and if something beats the pants off Android, will proceed to do it again.

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They still, even today have the alternative of not buying anything, too. This happened in the PC space at the low end for years.

And that's a stupid alternative too because Android is sufficiently good to keep up with Apple but at $200 smartphone prices.

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As long as there is no compulsion to buy (and there is not, especially as data plans are an added cost over and above the phones proper), it is entirely reasonable to conclude that the purchase of an Android phone is an affirmative act and as such, should engender no more and no less loyalty than any other brand that is wiping the floor with its competition.

When have I claimed otherwise?

My claim is simply that when you spend less you have less emotional attachment to a brand; that's pretty easy to grasp, isn't it?

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Under your strange definition, we could presumably infer more loyalty for Android if MS and BB didn't fail so spectacularly.

No, and that is why you don't understand what I'm saying. If MS and BB didn't fail so spectacularly they wouldn't have switched to Android and there wouldn't be a question about Android loyalty in the first place. However, because they failed we also know that people did switch to Android, and it also shows that if Android gets overshadowed that these same people will leave Android, too.

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Sorry, that isn't real world. The hypothesis that a brand has more loyalty in a competitive market than one in which it vanquishes the available competition is just not sensible.

It isn't sensible because I didn't say it.

I said a brand has more loyalty when it costs more.A brand that costs less has correspondingly less loyalty.I am trying to say that a brand that can't compete can't keep any real loyal users.

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Now, it is true that a 300 dollar iPhone would be a test, but it's also true that it works somewhat the other way; Apple does not have the whole high end to itself.

No, not really. It has a huge portion of the high end to itself.

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BTW, it is also true that once you get into the 100s of millions of consumer range, things as trivial as peanut butter have substantial brand loyalty. Arguing as you did, I would argue that generic and house brands are "inferior" and don't count. No one else would.

By definition generic and house brands aren't inferior, they are just substitutes. They are just not advertised brands.

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Is it 100 per cent? No, surveys proclaim it isn't anywhere near. Nor is it as good as Apple. But, we can't perform this odd jujitsu on a stunning marketplace result and thereby infer no loyalty.

Because that's not what I did.

I'm claiming that because Android's loyalty hasn't yet been tested. You need something better in order to test it's loyalty.

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The results proclaim a certain amount of loyalty and loyalty that matters. World of mouth for Android has to be pretty darn good on the results we see.

Sure, but my point isn't that there's no loyalty. My point is that there's no conditions under which it's loyalty can be tested since no equivalent substitutes exist at equivalent prices.

At the high end you have Apple dominating by up to 3:2 over equivalent priced Android phones.

At the low end you have really no equivalents to test people's loyalty at all.

You label the alternatives as "inferior" and by doing so, you magically rule that Android has no "test of loyalty".

No, not at all. By labeling them as inferior I say that there is no way for Nokia, MS, or RIM to afford to test the consumer's loyalty to Android. They aren't able to compete.

By labeling them as "inferior" you're taking them out of the argument. You are pretending that they are not alternatives. That's the privileged argument part.

(I'm not saying Android is privileged itself; I'm saying you are doing a variant of a privileged argument; a logically invalid argument with this whole "inferior-therefore-doesn't-count" line of reasoning. That MS and RIM aren't competing with Android would come as a big surprise to just about everyone, including the companies involved who are trying to match each other, feature for feature if they can).

Your whole argument is a form of begging the question.

Just because, in actual fact, the alternatives to Android are failing does not mean they aren't alternatives. They are just vanquished alternatives.

Let's say RIM had sold a host more of its phone to other people, and all those who bought Android had still done so. By your twisted logic, they'd be more loyal to Android. But, how does the behavior of other people make them more loyal to Android? They're still rejecting the same product they already did in actual fact. The only difference (and one that might have even happened) is that other people did other things. There's no test in this scenario; there is simply more success for RIM than we observe.

You just can't use other competitors' failures as a way of leveraging some sort of loyalty deficit to Android. Of any kind. Whatever the loyalty to Android is, whatever nature you want to describe for it, it has little or nothing to do with the failure of the competition; we can attribute whatever it has to its own success and what happens as time goes forward.

And, it's not like any of the players are standing still; your argument more than tacitly implies that today's marketplace positions are unalterable. And, so they are likely to be unless W8/WP8 proves potent. But this relative positioning, which seems likely to me, only happens because all parties will continue to work like hell to maintain if not extend their current positions. This isn't true stasis we're talking about here.

Android is nobody's default and your argument is trying to make it into one. It isn't. It is winning and it gets all that comes with it. Including a modicum of loyalty -- at least as much a Jiffy peanut butter gets.

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Sure, but my point isn't that there's no loyalty. My point is that there's no conditions under which it's loyalty can be tested since no equivalent substitutes exist at equivalent prices.

Except that they do in real life. That they do not is your personal judgement and you use it to go places that aren't logically sound. It doesn't constrain reality in any way.

And, in truth, you do argue the loyalty bit in the end by arguing as you do.

Maybe you should just drop the whole "loyalty" part and argue that if the competition was better, the competition would sell more. But, even so, that doesn't necessarily change Android's outcome, because we aren't quite at the zero sum point yet.

I frankly don't think Nokia/random Android brands engender this kind of loyalty to be on a national newscast...but keep arguing Apple vs. Android in the Blackberry thread as you wish, as you all seem to be oblivious to where you are and why you are here, who am I to question why?

I frankly don't think Nokia/random Android brands engender this kind of loyalty to be on a national newscast...but keep arguing Apple vs. Android in the Blackberry thread as you wish, as you all seem to be oblivious to where you are and why you are here, who am I to question why?

BB as it is cannot compete with Android. This has nothing to do with Apple (I only bring them up because as of now they are the only brand/oem that has stood their ground at all in Android's onslaught).

YoY, as recorded by Gartner in August, all the OEMs except Apple have fallen dramatically.

It's been hashed out multiple times as to why; I'm not using marketshare to declare RIM or Nokia or MS unable to compete, their dearth of competitive devices is the cause as to why they have dismal market shares.

Given that as an axiom (no one wants a BB or Symbian or WP smartphone), then I still think my assertion is correct; there is no challenger to Android at the low end, ergo there is no brand loyalty to test. At best I use RIM, Nokia, and MS itself as the sample set for brand loyalty; given that just a year or two ago they still had double digit market share, but today they only have single digit, I posit that if something better arrives at a similar pricepoint then:1) The OEM would lose customers to another OEM (even if still Android)2) Android would lose customers to another OS (even if the same OEM)

This assertion is testable, but that assumes that BB OS 10 and WP 8 are both up to snuff and can keep it up for the next two year, and for #2 or that LG/HTC/ZTE somehow keep their act together for the next two years.

The first year is necessary just to convince the market your device is worth switching to, the second year to see word of mouth spread from early adopters and brand equity build itself up until enough people off contract/tired with the old device adopt a new device.

So, while BBOS may be dead OS walking, BBOS10 still has a chance, but as I've said multiple times it is a long hard slog that will take two years, at least, of committed and perfect execution to pull off.

This is the same challenge facing FTC, Microsoft, Nokia, LG, and anyone else trying to challenge Apple and Samsung right now. It worked for Lenovo in the PC space, after all; from a distant third they are now within a fraction of a percent to being first in the market.